Journey to South Africa
Ancient Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu wrote: “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” As a globetrotter I have encountered many different cultures around the world. With these interesting encounters I have come to realize that human are by nature inherently ethnocentric. We are all proud of our own culture and think ours is the greatest on earth. Is there a good or bad culture? One of the most prevalent western cultural superstitions is the fear of the number 13. It is triskaidekaphobia! As a “free pilgrim” conquering triskaidekaphobia on Holy Thursday 13th of April 2017 (coming out of my comfort zone) I took a long flight from Vancouver via Frankfurt into Cape Town with the hope of immersing myself in some of the fascinating cultures of the African continent.
The Perspective
A few months before embarking on this trip I tried to place myself in proper geographical perspective. I had been informed that the modern standard Mercator Map does not reflect the true landmass of Africa. The world map was chartered according to the Mercator’s projection in the 1600s. Despite being one of the most popular map projections (which I believe is even used by Google) the Mercator map makes Western nations appear larger than they actually are. In reality, the African continent can cover the total surface of the United States, China, India and the whole of Eastern Europe. As a Canadian I realize that Africa, geographically, is three times the size of our country. South Africa (as the name suggests) is situated at the southern tip of the continent and is divided into nine provinces. It has a coastline measuring in total about 2,798 kilometres in the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. By area South Africa is the twenty fifth largest country in the world. It is multi-ethnic with diverse cultures and languages.
The Twelve Apostles Mountain Range Cape Town
For this Sojourn in South Africa I had rented a small apartment in Cape Town with a 24-hour Security and access from both Adderley and Parliament street in Western Cape. Our host Christine, who is in the travel business, had recommended to us many areas of interests, including The V&A Waterfront, Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch, Boulders Beach, Cape of Good Hope etc. etc. and of course the safari…to see the Big Fives!
The Slave Lodge in Cape Town is a social history museum. It was the largest slave holding at the Cape until 1806. In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries the Lodge was used for government offices and to house the Supreme Court. The present building with its courtyard share some features of the slave period.
Table Mountain (as seen from the Company Garden near where we stayed) is not only a spectacular backdrop for Cape Town but it also offer visitors the unique experience of walking on top of it to enjoy the spectacular view of the city.
Panoramic view of Cape Town from top of Table Mountain
View of Table Mountain from Table Bay Harbour
Enjoying the spectacular view from the canopy at Kirstenbosch gardens.
Penguins at Boulder Beach which is a sheltered beach between granite boulders. It is located in the Cape Peninsula near Simon’s Town in South Africa.
The southernmost of Africa is not the Cape of Good Hope (as is generally misunderstood). The southernmost of Africa is actually the relatively unspectacular Cape Agulhas.
Going on an all-terrain vehicle for the South African safari
Our Glimpses of wild lives and the Big Fives in South African Safari without the cheetahs…
A candid shot with a telephoto lens of the same lion peeping at us as we approached with our vehicle…
The lion in the South African bush with the lioness as seen from our vehicle at safe distance…
The African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) relocated here is the larger of the two species of African elephant.
A Rhino runs the risk of losing its horn to poacher. The crisis actually began in Zimbabwe where the socio-economic and political climate facilitated rhino poaching. Poaching gangs later turned their attention to neighbouring South Africa.
A mother giraffe with her youngster
The African buffalo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild water buffalo of Asia and its ancestry remains unclear.
The gemsbok (Oryx gazella) is a native to the arid regions of Southern Africa. It is a large antelope in the Oryx genus.
The springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) is the sole member of the genus Antidorcas. It is a medium-sized antelope found mainly in southern and southwestern Africa. It was first described by the German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann in 1780.
Zebras are single-hoofed animals. They are in the same genus as horses and donkeys . The most prominent feature of zebras is the bold patterns on their coats.
Nelson Mandela’s Prison on Robben Island
Approaching Robben Island in excellent weather
Approaching the prison compound
Robben Island was used from 1961 by the South African government as prison for political prisoners and convicted criminals. Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of prison life on Robben Island. Mandela was prisoner number 46664 being the 466th prisoner to arrive in the year 1964. In his autobiography “The Long Walk to Freedom” he wrote: “In those early years, isolation became a habit. We were routinely charged for the smallest infractions and sentenced to isolation” and “I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There was no end and no beginning; there is only one’s own mind, which can begin to play tricks.” I learned however that in the later part of his imprisonment he was actually housed in a cottage in a prison compound near Cape Town (known as Victor Verster) where he had TV, Newspapers, a swimming pool and was allowed visitors. In 1991 the government closed the maximum security prison for political prisoners and the medium security prison for criminal prisoners was closed five years later.
Fourth window is for Nelson Mandela’s cell.
Robben Island medium security prison.
The cell of Nelson Mandela (prisoner number 46664)
Old graveyard on Robben Island
Stone pit where hard labour was carried out.
On 2 February 1990, FW de Klerk announced the ending of apartheid, the unbanning of the African National Congress and the release of political prisoners which included Nelson Mandela. On Sunday, 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela was released unconditionally from prison. To date, three of the former inmates of Robben Island i.e. Nelson Mandela, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma (current) have gone on to become Presidents of South Africa.
With the end of apartheid, the island has become a popular destination with tourists from around the world. Thousands of visitors take the ferry from Cape Town for tours of the island and its former prison. Like many of these tourists in our time I was able to get a glimpse of this notorious Robben Island which is about 40 minutes ferry ride from the V & A Waterfront. I had the opportunity to meet one of Nelson Mandela’s friends and co-prisoners and by him gained an insight into prison life during that period of history.
Entrance to The Anglican Garrison Church on Robben Island. The Church represents an early form of the “Gothic” style. The front entrance and tower faces east with an apse at the back in the west. The Church was designed by the then Sir John Bell in 1840. It was built by prisoners on Robben Island in 1841.
All land on the island (with the exception of the Anglican Garrison church) is owned by the state of South Africa and managed by Robben Island Museum (RIM) which operates the site as a living museum…
Slavery and Oppression.
From South Africa I sailed to Cape Vert where in 1501 the Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci began to construct his “Mundus Novus” hypothesis : – Vespucci’s letter from Bezequiche (1865) reproduced in F.A. de Varnhagen Amerigo Vespucci pp 78-82 (ref: Journey to the New World “Mundus Novus”). For me, this was a brief but purposeful visit to Dakar (the capital of Senegal) situated at the westernmost city of the Old World. I had learned that the area around Dakar was settled in the 15th century by the Portuguese. Goree island off the coast of Cape Vert, sheltered from the Atlantic by the Dakar peninsula, was used as a base for the Atlantic Slave Trade.
The Atlantic Slave Trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th to the 19th centuries.
Ferry terminal to Goree Island in Dakar Senegal
Goree Island with a history as a slave depot.
Present day incarnation of Goree with pastel-coloured buildings
The Atlantic Slave Trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th to the 19th centuries. I had the opportunity to visit the slave trade museum and was “transported” back in time. Within I was moved and felt the enormity of oppression and suffering which has long been forgotten. Goree has a notorious history as a slave depot. Today, on the island, I saw a cluster of pastel-coloured mansions and museums above the shore as its sleepy present-day incarnation. During the time of slave trade the vast majority of those enslaved and transported to the New World were Africans from the western part of the African continent with some captured by slave traders in the coastal raids. “The slave trade represents the biggest forced movement of people in history,” says Elizabeth Khawajkie, the international coordinator of the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet)…but that is another story…
The House of Slaves with the “Door Of No Return”. When Nelson Mandela came here in 1991, one year after his release from prison, he broke away from the tour to sit silently and emerged red-eyed and plainly shaken five minutes later -Howard W. French, “Goree Island Journal: The Evil That Was Done Senegal: A Guided Tour”- The New York Times, Friday, March 6, 1998.
Holding cell for slaves on Goree Island
Entrance to the holding cell in the House of Slaves built by the Dutch in 1776. It is the last slave house still standing in Goree and now serves as a museum.
The meaning of Freedom
Freedom (especially in the West) is considered the highest human virtue. It is sought after all by everyone especially by those who are (or who consider themselves) oppressed. As I walked around Robben Island and Goree Island I could not help myself thinking about apartheid and slavery, the oppression and liberation of women, the Exodus story and the real meaning of “freedom”. In the biblical paradigm “freedom” is not social, political or economic freedom. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”-John 8:36. (KJV). Some time ago I read that a Fr. Stephen of the Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry mentioned that over many years of being a prison chaplain he had heard this statement: “I am freer here in prison than I was ever on the outside!” How could that possibly be? How could someone experience more freedom inside a prison than on the outside?
With the end of apartheid a BEE programme (Black Economic Empowerment) was implemented starting from 2003 : “It is an integrated and coherent socio-economic process. It is located within the context of the country’s national transformation programme, namely the RDP. It is aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer and confer the ownership, management and control of South Africa’s financial and economic resources to the majority of its citizens. It seeks to ensure broader and meaningful participation in the economy by black people to achieve sustainable development and prosperity.”— BEE Commission Report. The BEE was later modified by the B-BBEE (Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment). However despite modification the program is still controversial in nature. Some consider its racial preference statements contradict the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Where do we go from here?
As for the rest of us (the Whites or people like me from the “west” in the present time) going to Africa, shaking hands with the “coloured”and hugging poor children would do nothing to improve their lives, their livelihood or the community even though it may make us feel good about ourselves or to be seen as being caring and compassionate.
African Children from Township
Township with a view of the Table Mountain
The question is whether we are willing to welcome them (which also include welcoming refugees into our country) in our hearts , into our very own homes and to encourage them to receive the Living Water? Are we merely “alive” in this world but spiritually dead if we are not willing to do so? Do we “outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within are full of hypocrisy and iniquity”. Are we being called “hypocrites” by gentle and loving Jesus? – Matthew 23:1-39 (KJV).
On the other side of the coin I believe the “coloured”, the “colonized” and all those oppressed or who consider themselves oppressed should forgive the past and move on because we will always be in bondage and never be free until we have forgiven others for the wrong they’ve done against us. “The individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ‘finding himself’. If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.” ~ Thomas Merton
Easter Sunday Service in St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town … “Uvul kile ngokwenene, Haleluya”!
Is South Africa free today? Perhaps there is social, political and economic freedom. South Africa is the only nation in the African continent where people are even free to marry members of the same sex. However, during my visit to this free country in this Easter Season I had the deep and profound feeling that despite this freedom, in this free South Africa, the people here are still in bondage. There is still tremendous discontent within the society. Riots are common and brawls had even broken out more than once inside the Parliament itself. I came to realize that peace in this beautiful country may not come just through politics and economics. There is concern by some (both Whites and “coloureds” with whom I had discourse during this sojourn) that unless broad-based fundamental transformation happens socially and spiritually post-apartheid may also be the end of the coming together for the common good and perhaps even the end of this “rainbow nation”. The “myth” of race and sexuality will always be there as in the rest of our natural world. Perhaps we need to understand that non-racialism and non-sexualism is the rejection of this “myth” which is true. It is as clear and distinct from falsehood as day is from night and light is from darkness…
Just a thought: The Exodus wasn’t just a metaphor (Ref: “The Karnak Temple” www.freepilgrim.com/cultural-pilgrimage/). I believe the story of Exodus repeats itself in every generation because there will always be people in bondage. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV). Exodus tells us that the Israelites to whom God had given freedom and after having pledged to keep the Law God had given them from Mt. Sinai, broke it in less than 40 days…
Courtesy of The Slave Lodge Museum
It is instructive to remind ourselves that God has given us liberty not for the flesh: “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”- Galatians 5:13 (KJV)
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